Les frowned at her. “What about?”
“Keeping this place afloat.”
“When you run a big place like Astrid’s, you never come out ahead,” he answered carefully. “Your profits, assuming you have any, get plowed right back into the business. Something always needs repairing or replacing. It’s a lot like running a farm, in that sense. But we’ve been keeping our heads above water. We do okay.”
“I know that Aaron comes into the castle now that Norma is gone,” Des stated. “As her executor, you’re in a position to know if she provided for anyone else, am I right?”
“You are. And she did. She made provisions in her will for several others.”
“Such as who?”
“Well, there’s Teddy. And the kids, Jory and Jase.”
“You didn’t mention that to Aaron this morning.”
“I know I didn’t. It’s none of his damned business.”
“May I ask you how much money we’re talking about?”
“Actually, I don’t think you have a right to ask me that. The terms of Norma ’s will are confidential until it’s been filed with the Court of Probate.”
“I have every right to ask. Just as you have every right to not answer. You’re not obligated to, but if you want to help me…”
“I do want to help. Really, I do.” Les fell silent a moment, making up his mind. “Strictly between us, Norma left fifty thousand apiece to Jory and Jase. Seed money, so they can start up a small business or buy a home or whatever. She wanted them to be provided for.”
“Are the two of them aware of this?”
“Norma asked me to keep it between us. She may have told them. I didn’t.”
“And Teddy?”
“The same amount, fifty thousand. The poor guy is always scuffing. She took pity on him. Norma had a soft heart. Too soft, if you ask me.”
“And what did she leave you?”
Les coughed uneasily. “She’d earmarked the money from Paul’s life insurance policy for me. She’d never touched it. It amounted to two hundred thousand.”
“A man can do a lot with that kind of money. What are your plans?”
“My plans?” he shot back incredulously. “I’m just trying to figure out how to get through this day. My entire life is in ruins.”
“Believe me, I understand.” Des counted to three, then squeezed a little harder. “How’s your personal debt situation, Les? Do you owe anyone a lot of money?”
Les didn’t respond. Just clenched his jaw muscles.
“If you do, I’ll find out. You may as well tell me now.”
“Tell you what? This is outrageous! First you drag me in here in front of my poor dead wife. Now you so much as accuse me of lying to you. How dare you? What do you think you are doing?”
“My job. I have to ask pretty harsh questions sometimes.”
“I noticed.”
“Les, you’ve been married before, am I right?”
“Twice,” he answered coldly. “And in answer to what is no doubt your next harsh question: Yes, I do still pay alimony and child support to my second wife, Janice, thereby leaving me penniless. I don’t even own the car I drive. The castle leases it for me.”
“How were you and Norma getting along?”
“We were happy together. I told you that this morning.”
“True enough,” she acknowledged. “But you didn’t tell me that you’re involved with another woman. Who is she, Les?”
Again, he fell silent. But this was not an angry silence. This was the last of his manly resolve leaking slowly out of him, like the air out of a worn-out radial tire. She could practically hear the hiss. And the physical change in the man was really quite startling. His skeletal structure seemed to give way from within, leaving behind only a limp, quivering meat sack. “You actually think I filled Norma, don’t you?” he said to her forlornly. “Well, I didn’t. And shame on you for even thinking it. Maybe I wasn’t altogether happy, but so what? Most of us aren’t altogether happy. That doesn’t make us killers. It just makes us normal.”
As Des studied Les’s sagging self there at the window, it occurred to her that he had not denied having a girlfriend. In fact, he had managed to avoid the question entirely. All of which translated to this: She could easily like him for plotting to kill Norma, and then killing Ada because she’d somehow stumbled upon what he’d done. Des could like him a lot. After all, $200,000 could buy a lot of happiness. And yet she also could not help shaking the nagging feeling that Les had been much better off with Norma alive than dead.
Her cell phone squawked now.
She thanked Les and asked him to return to his room. He did not pause on his way out to take one last look at Norma. Just oozed on out the door, shutting it softly behind him. He had not been able to look at her the whole time he was in there.
“Resident Trooper Mitry,” she said into her phone.
“Yo, Master Sergeant,” a voice exclaimed in her ear, the connection crackly but plenty audible. “I understand you’ve got yourself a situation.”
“You understand right, wow man,” Des responded, smiling. The voice belonged to Lieutenant Rico “Soave” Tedone, the stumpy young bodybuilder who had been her sergeant back when she was a lieutenant on the Major Crime Squad.
“If I didn’t know you better, I’d swear you’re glad to hear my voice.”
“Ultra-glad, Rico,” she said. Which, for a time, had not been true. They’d had their difficulties. But Soave had grown up a lot since then. They both had. “Is this your case?”
“Just got the call,” he confirmed. “Not that I can get to the damned case. What have you got for me, Des?”
“Two dead, Rico. A mother and daughter. One’s a strangulation, the other’s an I-don’t-know-what. But she was helped along, I’m sure of it.” Des walked him though the details, keeping her comments brief and precise. “I’ve got the situation under control. Witnesses are separated. I’m in the process of taking their statements now.”
“And maybe doing a little bit more, if I know you.”
“For backup, I’ve got Mitch.”
“Who, Berger? He’s up there?”
“He is,” she replied, knowing what this was all about. Soave was a happily married man these days-he and his high school sweetheart, Tawny, had finally tied the knot on their epic nine-year courtship. But he had been extremely warm for Des’s bootylicious form when they were teamed together, had gotten nowhere, and still could not believe that she had fallen for Mitch.
“And how’s that going?” he wondered.
“Why would you ask me that?”
“Because I’ve heard you sound happier in your day.”
“Rico, I’ve just lost two people I liked. I’m stranded, I’m cold, I could use a hot bath. What’s your situation? Where are you?”
“Trapped in fuzzy pink hell, that’s where.”
“Um, okay, you’ll have to translate that.”
“I’m home,” he said heavily. Home being the vinyl-sided raised ranch in Glastonbury that he and Tawny had just bought. Her parents lived right around the corner.
“And this is bad because…?”
“Tawny was having a baby shower here last night for her cousin Ashley.”
“Little Ashley or big Ashley?”
“Big Ashley. Little Ashley wouldn’t come. They don’t speak. Don’t ask me why. Anyway, I’m talking horror show, okay? Tawny’s three sisters, her eight cousins, another dozen friends. And about nine o’clock, when they’re deep into the banana daiquiris, this giant tree comes crashing down at the end of the cul-de-sac, okay? Street’s totally blocked off. No power, no heat…”
